People living in exile in Germany who are threatened or attacked by agents of their former country’s authoritarian regime now have a helpline they can call, provided by Germany’s domestic intelligence agency.
The German Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) released a brochure on Thursday (August 20) to introduce this hotline, which serves people who have fled to Germany from authoritarian countries such as Russia, China, and Iran to seek asylum.
In recent years, these exiles have increasingly faced intimidation, surveillance, repression, and even kidnappings and assassination attempts. The brochure encourages them to assist the Constitutional Defense Office in analyzing the opponent's repressive tactics and how to counter them.
The brochure is aimed at people facing threats such as dissidents, journalists, and those with sexual minority identities, and conveys the hope that the Constitutional Defense Agency has the potential to thwart the specific threats faced by those who seek help.
The 16-page booklet said in one section that through its own investigation and information provided by those involved, German intelligence agencies were able to identify those responsible.
The hotline numbers are +49 228 99792-6000 (Bonn) and +49 30 18792-6000 (Berlin) and the email address is [email protected]. The official website of the Bureau for the Protection of the Constitution provides leaflets in multiple languages, including Chinese. The Chinese leaflet is titled "Are you threatened by other countries' intelligence agencies? Providing information can protect you!"
In 2022, Safeguard Defenders, an overseas human rights organization headquartered in Spain, issued a report stating that the public security departments of some Chinese provinces had established 102 "Police Overseas Chinese Service Stations" in at least 53 countries on five continents, including Frankfurt, Germany.
"Protection Defenders" believes that China's actions against overseas Chinese or their family members staying in China, whether the targets are dissidents, corrupt officials or others, undermine due legal procedures and the basic rights of suspects. They also circumvent bilateral police and judicial cooperation between countries, violate international regulations, and allow the Chinese Communist Party authorities to extend their hands beyond China's borders.
Subsequently, the German government called on Beijing to close police and overseas Chinese service stations in Germany. In February 2023, a spokesman for the German Foreign Ministry stated, "China responded to us in early February that these so-called 'service stations' had been closed." A few months later, the German intelligence agency discovered that China still maintained at least two mobile "overseas police service stations" in Germany.
On July 1 this year, China began to implement the Law on Promotion of National Unity and Progress, which advocates that foreign organizations or individuals who "undermine national unity and progress" or "create national divisions" will be held accountable in accordance with the law. International public opinion generally believes that this means that the Chinese government has stepped up its "cross-border suppression" efforts.
The German government passed a major reform plan for the country's intelligence agency on August 12, giving it broad new powers to carry out covert operations and respond to threats from abroad.
According to the adopted plan, after the reform, the intelligence services will receive significantly expanded powers. BND will no longer be limited to collecting intelligence, but can take proactive actions under limited circumstances - including invading foreign information systems, paralyzing the enemy's network attack infrastructure, and even weakening the opponent's attack capabilities under the so-called "special intelligence situation."
Members of Congress from both parties in the United States proposed the "Stop Cross-Border Repression Act" in mid-July, which intends to aggravate any "harassment, pressure, or threat to others" by "foreign government agents" in the United States in response to the increasing cross-border repression by China and Iran.
